JAKARTA, Nov 16, 2007 (AFP) - Indonesian activists are urgingauthorities here to hunt down illegal loggers using anti-moneylaundering laws, following the shock acquittal of a high-profile suspectwho has gone on the run.Indonesia's abysmal record on fighting illegal logging -- no timberbaron has ever received a substantial jail term here -- is under thespotlight ahead of the nation hosting a global climate change conferencein December.Adelin Lis, the head of logging company Keang Nam Development, fledfrom custody earlier this month after a court in North Sumatra found hewas not guilty of illegal logging charges due to a lack of evidence.Lis' company was cleared of accusations that it illegally razed primeforest in lush North Sumatra province, where some of Indonesia's lastremaining rainforest tracts provide refuge to elephants and endangeredtigers.The logger had originally been nabbed when he tried to extend hispassport at the Indonesian embassy in Beijing in 2006. He was describedby the embassy as being an "environmental destroyer".Allegations of court officials being bribed in his case havesurfaced, although prosecutors have said they will appeal, while policehave named Lis as a suspect in a linked money laundering case.His lawyers have reportedly said they will present him to police --who say they have issued an Interpol notice to recapture him -- if theypromise not to jail him.But in perhaps an ominous sign of the difficulties police may face,Indonesia's Attorney General Hendarman Supandji has dismissed efforts sofar, saying: "This money laundering comes from which crime? This is notclear."Derry Wanta, a member of the Indonesian Working Group on ForestFinance (IWGFF) -- an independent lobby group of researchers andactivists -- conceded it would be difficult to get Lis back to court"but not impossible"."It is written in the money laundering law that a suspect can betried for money laundering independent from the prime crime," he toldAFP, speaking after a meeting of the group over bringing Lis to justiceon Thursday.Indonesia's groundbreaking 2002 anti-money laundering law would bemore effective in catching the illegal loggers than the conventionalcriminal code, said the IWGFF's Willem Pattinasarany."Most of their financial transactions use bank transfers. Unusualbanking profiles can be easily traced -- ask (suspects) to prove thatthose suspicious transactions are not illegal," Pattinasarany said."If there are two crimes indicated to be related, one of them moneylaundering, we think it's best for the money laundering crime to beprocessed first" because it would be a simpler case, he said.Still, police must carefully do their homework.A recent case in Indonesia's timber-rich Papua province centred on alocal police chief receiving large money transfers to his personalaccount; the officer was cleared, and an appeal dismissed, foradministrative reasons.Police said in May that they were becoming increasingly frustratedwith the number of illegal loggers who were inexplicably being acquittedin Papua."There are many cases where police or prosecutors have not formed atight case before going ahead to court. This had caused many cases to bedismissed for administrative reasons," Pattinasarany told AFP.Sadino, a legal expert with the IWGFF, also urged police to be morecareful in planning all their indictments, as sloppy work meant"usually, the man with the chainsaw in the forest gets the blame.""Forestry crimes are specialty cases -- investigators should becoherent from when they start to collect evidence," Sadino said, addingthat a single discrepancy can mean the whole case gets thrown out.The Indonesian government had estimated illegal logging costs thecountry about four billion dollars and some 2.8 million hectares offorest cover per year over the past decade.nsh/sb/tha